Re: No plural morpheme

On Nov 24, 2007 7:30 AM, Dirk Elzinga <dirk.elzinga@...> wrote:
> On Nov 24, 2007 5:34 AM, caeruleancentaur <caeruleancentaur@...> wrote:
>
> > I enjoy reading fantasy lit.  Sometimes the authors use archaic
> > language in the mouths of some of the characters.  I recently read one
> > character saying, "It's seven mile away...."
> >
> > I'm trying to keep Senjecan grammar as uncluttered as possible.  I
> > thought that I might not use a plural morpheme if the plurality of the
> > noun was obvious as when, say, a number qualified the noun.
> >
> > What are your experiences with this in either a natlang or your
> > conlang?  I believe that Japanese does this.
>
> Mongolian (Khalkh) does this as well, as we've discovered in our field
> methods class this semester. Mongolian does have number marking, just
> not when explicitly quantified. Shoshoni only inflects for number
> (sing and dual) for animates; it sounds odd (if not downright wrong)
> to speakers to add number inflection to inanimates.
Oops. That should be "dual and plural", not "sing and dual". Singular
is unmarked in Shoshoni; dual and plural are marked (/-nɨwɨh/ and
/-nɨːn/, respectively).

>
> > Charlie
>
> Dirk
>